Welcome to “The Wilderness and the Wellspring,” a newsletter about riding the endless wave of creativity from self-doubt to creative highs.
Try the podcast version of this post—you might just love it!
If the most-watched creators in the indie gamedev YouTube community are to be believed, then we should all be cranking out a new game every month, maybe every week or two. That’s not a dig on the YouTube community—after all, it’s a beautiful dream to believe we could produce so many games per year, and I would love to think I could be one of those people. But as far as I can tell, I’m not that person, and no amount of practice or productivity hacking will ever get me there. Only recently have I realized that I’m okay with this.
In your creative life, maybe you want to make a beautiful painting every week, write a novel every month, or work with a hundred photographic models this year. Whatever you create, it’s natural to compare yourself to others and wonder why you don’t seem to produce as much or as high-quality work as others. It’s easy for me to beat myself up for not already having a massive roster of games to my name, but all that self-loathing has got me is demotivation.
When I made my first video game as a kid, I didn’t know anyone else making games on their home computer, but now there are huge online communities of people making games all the time. I’ve found that dipping into these communities can be fun, but it’s also highly distracting, and being in them sometimes tends to cause me to doubt myself rather than be inspired. So in creating this Substack, I realized it was time for a reset, to reduce my involvement to just a few, much smaller communities (side note: I love the community at the mud coders guild, and even though I don’t make MUDs they let me stick around). Upon reflection, this shouldn’t surprise me since I’m an introvert and prefer fewer close connections to a broad network of people.
But this week, I specifically sat down to ponder my creative pace. I tried to resist the temptation to set some lofty goal or to push myself beyond what felt natural and engaging, and instead just looked back at my history and noticed that I make about one significant creative project per year: anything less and I start to get the itch to create, and anything more and I feel stressed and sad. That means that I’m likely to make about one fun game per year that I’m proud of, with a complete game loop that is relatively bug-free. The game doesn’t have to be finished; it just has to be fun.
What kind of creative career will I be able to look back on?
I’m currently 43 years old and feel I’m only just getting started, so if my creative career extends to age 50, I’ll produce 6-7 significant projects before I hang my hat up. I used to think this was pretty pathetic, but not so much. How many well-known game designers do you know that have produced more than 6-7 good games, and how many were developed in a formal game studio with large teams and took more than a year to produce? I’m just one person working with a few talented contractors, trying to share what I love with other interested people.
But why stop at age 50? No reason, really; perhaps I won’t. It just sounds like a nice, round number.
What about you?
I would love to hear your creative story: big and bold, small and humble, successful or stumbling, and anywhere between. You can write me an email at jefflunt@gmail.com.
Three creators I think are doing it well and that I admire, in no particular order
IDoZ’s “Archvale” devlogs on YouTube are a fantastic example of slowly sending putting out content, taking the time to balance a game, and doing things at a reasonable pace.
I admire what Tarn and Zach Adams have done with “Drawf Fortress” and especially their long-term view and love of what they’re building. They’ve deservedly received a lot of love and press coverage over the years, and just about any retrospective on how the game has been made so far is a source of great inspiration.
Finally, Lost Relic Games on YouTube is great at talking about mindset, self-awareness, and making a creative life sustainable.